


Swan Song

by Lysandra



Category: Bartimaeus - Jonathan Stroud
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-22 18:52:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11386284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lysandra/pseuds/Lysandra
Summary: "You would let yourself rot! You would spit on my generosity!” Dying is easy. Saying goodbye is the hard part.





	Swan Song

The day that Kitty told Bartimaeus that she had no intention of returning to the Other Place with him, that she was perfectly content to die at home in her bed and no he could not change her mind, she had already prepared by hiding any especially breakable valuables. It was things she’d picked up on her travels, mostly, and a few precious books. These would go to her godchildren when she passed. She was not particularly attached to the rest of her earthly goods.

Kitty was seventy-three, a very respectable age even for someone who’d never experienced interdimensional travel, and she was not upset when the doctors told her that her time was drawing to a close. Her mind had remained sharp, her body as strong as could have been hoped for, and now she was gradually slipping away. No particular reason - natural causes - but her liver was failing and her heart was following close behind. This would be the last autumn she would see. She was ready. It was time.

Bartimaeus took it about as well as she’d expected. A full-scale supernatural temper tantrum ensued, complete with chill winds, rolls of thunder, and (of course) a flurry of destruction, during which most of her possessions not nailed down were dashed against the walls to the soundtrack of unearthly wailing. Bartimaeus had faded into a disembodied presence, so she couldn’t see him any longer, but his words boomed all around her.

“Any human - _any of them!_ \- would give anything for this chance!” he roared. “And you would throw it away! You would let yourself rot! You would _spit_ on my generosity!” His voice flanged wildly; it sounded like a crowd of people - men, women, and children - shrieking in agonized unison. One by one, the glass in the picture frames on Kitty’s walls shattered. A dozen invisible hands tore books from the shelves and hurled them savagely into the fireplace. The voice twisted between accents: now upper-class British English, now somber West African tones, now something altogether unfamiliar. It was as though Kitty were hearing the dying screams of a dozen civilizations come and gone.

“Selfish, _selfish little girl!_ You’ve only ever cared for yourself! Fifty years I’ve been at your beck and call! _Fifty years_ I’ve been at your side, picking the bones from your fish-” The coffee table collapsed as though struck in the middle by an incredible force. “-and it has meant _nothing!_ ” Crash, smash. Blue flames flickered. Kitty rolled her eyes. She was too old and too tired to be cowed by his theatrics anymore. She waited patiently on the living room sofa for him to tire himself out. Per usual, she’d not bound Bartimaeus with any of the usual restrictive clauses, and that meant that she could do nothing. And even if she could have stopped him, could have given an order, there was no way she’d ever commit such an act of betrayal. She waited, eyes closed. There was a dull pain behind her breastbone.

It took a long time, as her companion was fresh from the Other Place and angrier than she’d ever seen him, and though he continued to berate her as he destroyed her house, not so much as a stray breeze touched Kitty herself. Then, finally, Ptolemy appeared again, face twisted with grief. His shoulders were slumped in defeat. The singed curtains fluttered sadly as a breeze trickled in through a smashed windowpane. Wordlessly, he padded over to where Kitty sat and knelt at her feet, not in the manner of a slave before a master, but like a worshiper at an altar.

A pause. His face shifted again; he made one last attempt.

“Please,” he murmured. “Come with me. If it’s the formlessness that bothers you, I can fix that. I did a room last time, remember? Well, I can do better than that. I’ll make a house, a city- whatever you want.” He looked up at her entreatingly. His eyes were black, but they were not cold.

“I wouldn’t inflict that on you,” said Kitty gently. “Anyway, that’s not the issue.”

“What is it? What?”

“Earth is my home,” said Kitty. “I’m a being of earth and water. This is where I belong.”

Bartimaeus curled his hands into fists. A dry sobbing sound caught in his throat. Slowly, gingerly, he rose and alighted on the sofa next to her. Then, quite unexpectedly, he pitched sideways to rest his head on her thin shoulder. Kitty stroked his hair with gnarled fingers. Ancient as he was, he could be so much like a boy in some ways. Perhaps, without the knowledge that one was inevitably going to die, and soon, one never really learned how to let go.

“Do you know how long?” Ptolemy’s voice was soft and quivering - he really did sound all of fourteen.

“Not long. I can feel it. I’m in my body, but not- not _attached_ , if that makes sense.”

“Will you let me stay? Until…”

“Of course.” Kitty shifted. In a couple of days, she’d be too weak for another summoning anyway. “You’ll have a very long time to rest, you know, since you’re recorded deceased. You’ll get to be home forever.”

“I don’t want forever,” he said. _I want_ you, was the unspoken implication.

Bartimaeus let her pet him for a moment, then seemed suddenly embarrassed at the contact, recoiling with downcast eyes. He touched her only rarely, though he seemed to enjoy it - perhaps that was one taboo surrounding humans he couldn’t bring himself to break. He straightened up and shifted away a bit. Kitty looked at him.

“I know what you’re wanting to ask. And the answer is ‘yes’”.

Kitty blinked. “What?”

“Yes, I’ll wear your form. For hundreds of years. Thousands. I’ll remember you, even when everyone else has forgotten.” His tone was not accusatory now. It was merely a quiet statement of fact. The djinni sounded tired and sad.

“You don’t need to,” said Kitty. “I’d actually prefer if you didn’t.”

The boy smiled ruefully. “You say that as though I have a choice.” He tilted his head. “I will carry you with me, you and Ptolemy, until I die or the secrets of summoning are lost forever.” He tapped his chin thoughtfully with one finger. “Shall I tell you?” he said. The anger was flaring up again at the fringes. “How I’ll stand in front of a mirror just so I can look upon your face again? See your smile, the mole on the side of your nose?”

“Stop,” said Kitty. “Don’t be manipulative.”

“Or perhaps you’re more interested in how I’ll visit your grave. Or how, next time I’m summoned, all I’ll be able to think about is what you’d have said, what you’d have thought if you were with me. And then I’ll remember that you’re dead and I couldn’t stop it and I’ll hate myself and I’ll hate _you_ and-”

“Do you want to go ahead and shed a single tear, too?” snapped Kitty. She scowled. She suspected she was being cruel, now, but she did not appreciate his attempts at guilting her for her choice. “I’m sure I can dig up some melancholy violin music if you like. And look!” She gestured to the window. “It’s raining. Be sure to stand gloomily out in it later.”

“I love you.”

“Stop being so- what?”

Bartimaeus said nothing. The Egyptian boy was staring at her, chin raised defiantly. It was as though he’d confessed to some secret, evil deed. He looked like he expected to be reprimanded or struck across the face for his audacity.

She’d never expected _this_. She knew how much he cared for her, of course, but was utterly shocked to hear the words.

Kitty reached out. She cupped Ptolemy’s face in her hands. He closed his eyes.

“I’m sorry, love,” she murmured. She leaned in and kissed his forehead. How strange it was, that such a vast and ancient being could be so precious to someone like her. She hoped, fervently, that Bartimaeus would keep up his habit of loving people after she was gone.

“Don’t patronize me, girl,” he said, eyelids flickering, but his heart wasn’t in it, and he leaned into her touch. But if he accepted her tenderness, he might break completely. Kitty looked out the window. The rain came down. Her bones ached. Her spirit, too, if she was honest. Poor old thing. So old and so very alone.

“It will be alright,” she said, and though she knew it sounded empty, she believed it.

Bartimaeus smiled. “You of all people would say that,” he said.

**Author's Note:**

> Trivia time: "to pick the bones from someone's fish" is a legit Sumerian idiom (so it's 4,000+ years old) that means being doting and sweet to someone. I thought it was cute and I have this thought that Bartimaeus occasionally slips old, now-nonsensical turns of phrase into his speech.


End file.
